


Be you angels? Nay. We are but men.

by Corinth (syren_song)



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 14:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21375529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syren_song/pseuds/Corinth
Summary: Bruce has been keeping secrets, and they're about to bite him in the ass.(Bruce neglects to tell the batfam that he made new friends or the Justice League that he has, like, 10 kids. Fortunately, Dick is both observant enough and nosy enough to resolve this.)
Relationships: Batfamily - Relationship, Batfamily Members & Justice League (DCU), Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 31
Kudos: 439





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Bruce calls Dick "Starling" bc he can't be Nightwing if he never met Superman & it was the closest aesthetic bird title. Imo, Dick is more like a superb fairy wren.

All things considered, it was best that Dick figured it out first. Dick was man enough to admit that he was not the most likely candidate; Babs and Tim had the best research skills and Cass had the best observational skills, but Babs and Tim were chronically busy and underslept and Cass was least likely to push. Dick wanted to say he noticed first because he knew Bruce the best. It was equally possible that he was the nosiest.

The first red flag was that Bruce started leaving Gotham more, even for non-Wayne Enterprises purposes or when he wasn’t expressly needed, then dodging direct questions about his absence. The second red flag was that Bruce seemed more tense and started keeping closer tabs on Dick and the others. The third red flag was that Bruce started spending more money, but as far as Dick could tell, there were no additions to the manor, the garage, or the Cave, and there were no announcements—flashy or subtle—about Bruce Wayne donating to any charities. Dick almost thought that Bruce was seeing someone, but if Bruce entered into ill-advised relationships, he generally preferred to do so close to Gotham. The only way to figure out what was going on was to follow Bruce, who was supposedly Earth’s greatest detective.

Dick was not above following him. He followed Bruce as far as Star City and a business meeting with Oliver Queen before he lost him, but in the morning, there was a newspaper spread with an enlarged photo of Green Arrow and a familiar dark silhouette just barely visible in the corner.

Dick may not have been Babs or Tim, but he could still dig up dirt with the best of them. He tracked Bruce’s suspicious trips out of town and cross-matched them with superhero sightings, especially ones reported in the newspaper. Batman rarely appeared in any sightings, but he frequently appeared as a dark blur in the background of photos of other superheroes, which was its own brand of suspicious. The day Dick heard whispers about the formation of a “Justice League” with a satellite watchtower, he grinned.

Fortunately for Dick, Batman might be able to dodge a tail, but the Justice League couldn’t (he made a mental note to tell Bruce about that once he had milked the weakness for his own blackmail). Unfortunately for Dick, he was not the only one who noticed.

The Justice League was involved in their third altercation of the night, trapped in an alleyway with low visibility. Dick watched from above. Bruce had taken a surprise hit in the second fight and was working with a mild concussion. Dick doubted anyone else had noticed, but Bruce’s reaction times were half a beat behind where they should have been and getting slower, and he was starting to take hits that he shouldn’t have. He would be fine, probably.

Bruce was fighting off two thugs when a third one approached from behind with a crowbar.

Before he knew it, Dick jumped down with his escrima rods at the ready, one coming down against the attacker’s arms and the other colliding with his chest, knocking him backwards. The crowbar clanged down the alleyway. Dick knocked out and tied up the assailant before he could catch his breath, then stepped up beside Bruce and took out one of the remaining attackers. The fight ended quickly, although Flash (who had not seen Dick’s entrance), jumped a foot in the air when he turned towards Batman and saw two men instead of one.

“Starling.”

“B.”

“What are you doing in Central City?”

“Oh, you know, just passing through.”

“…”

“You’re no fun when you’re concussed.”

“…”

“How did you say that with emphasis. You didn’t even _say_ anything.”

“Trust me, we’ve been wondering the same thing,” Flash jumped in. “We’ve been working together for six months. Guy’s like a fortress.”

“Six months, you say?” Dick asked innocently. Bruce paid close attention to a spot on the brick wall behind Dick’s shoulder. “Wow, that’s a long time.”

“Starling.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? I’m just having a friendly conversation with your friendly friend the Flash.”

“Please tell me we’re getting a video of this,” Green Lantern said. “I’ve never seen Batman so uncomfortable.”

“Friend?” Flash said.

“Of course,” Dick said sweetly. “Who else would get the honor of working with Batman? It seems like I rarely even see him these days.”

Bruce wanted to cradle his head in his hands, Dick could feel it.

“Do you two know each other?” Wonder Woman asked, eyes flicking between Bruce and Dick.

“You could say that,” Dick said.

“It’s more than that,” Wonder Woman said. “Batman didn’t even flinch when you came up behind him.”

Dick’s relaxed stance suddenly tensed, and before anyone could react, he sent a batarang flying over Green Arrow’s shoulder, where it sent a fleeing thug to the ground.

“Was that a—” Flash said.

“—Batarang,” Green Arrow confirmed. Superman looked like he was doing calculus in his head and he was never very good at math.

“You did this on purpose.”

“A little bit.” Dick held his pointer finger and thumb a very, very short distance apart. Just because he hadn’t jumped in before didn’t mean he hadn’t planned what he would do once he did. “I just wanted to let the Justice League know how big of a fan I am. I just hope you don’t forget us little people in your rise to stardom.”

Dick was not the only one who could see Bruce’s eye twitch that time.

“‘I work alone,’ you said. ‘You’re too much of a loose cannon,’ you said,” Green Lantern said.

“How long have you two known each other?” Superman asked.

Dick grinned. Bruce jumped in before Dick could reply. “How long have you been planning this.”

Dick hummed. “Specifically? Three weeks. In general? Fourteen years.”

“Fourteen years?” Superman asked. This was exactly as satisfying as Dick expected it to be, and he hadn’t fully milked it yet.

“I hope you know I’m telling Blue Jay next.”

“You can’t force him to change his moniker just because you want him to.”

“And yet I can. Isn’t that how you made friends?”

“Burn,” Flash whispered.

“I still think we should have brought a camera,” Green Lantern said.

“Batman would probably just delete the footage.”

“Why are you doing this.”

“Payback.”

“For what.”

Dick made a series of complicated facial expressions.

“Never mind, don’t answer that.”

“Who’s Blue Jay?” Wonder Woman asked.

“And that’s my cue to leave!” Dick clapped a hand against Bruce’s shoulder, an action he was certain none of the League members could get away with. “Have fun with this.”

With a laugh, Dick retrieved his grappling hook and swung off into the distance.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason shows up in Metropolis. It isn't as much fun as he thought it'd be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not as lighthearted as the last one. Jason is my son, but he's also an edgy boy. A real angsty lad. You have been warned.

Jason had killed…many people, both when he was in and out of his mind, both people who deserved it and people who, possibly, didn’t. This, though. This was definitely deserved.

“What’s wrong, Dad?” Jason asked, gesturing towards the Justice League and making sure to add a little wobble to his voice. “Am I not enough for you?”

“Dad…?” Flash asked.

“Should we leave?” Superman asked. They had assembled on a rooftop in Metropolis after Superman asked for their help thwarting Lex Luthor’s most recent scheme. It was not clear whether Superman was referring to the rooftop or the city in general, and it amused Jason to no end that Superman would offer to leave Metropolis out of sheer familial awkwardness.

Bruce let out a full-body sigh. “Starling told you.”

“Yep!” Jason unholstered one of his guns, twirled it, and placed it back in its holster. Almost every member of the Justice League flinched, either due to their experiences with guns or Batman’s vehement objection to them.

Bruce resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Is there any way I can convince you not to do this.”

“Let me drive the Batmobile. For a week.”

“No.”

“I can always steal it.”

“…”

“Are you Blue Jay?” Wonder Woman asked. There was a muffled comment of “he’s not even wearing blue” from the peanut gallery.

“Oh, for the love of—I’m going to kill Starling.”

“Do not kill your brother.”

“I’m going to maim Starling.”

“…”

“Jesus, you think you’d learn when I was joking.”

“Starling said that he’s known Batman for fourteen years,” Wonder Woman said. There was an implicit question in her voice, although she understood complicated births the best.

“Starling has a big fucking mouth.” Jason found himself at a crossroad: he could convince them that he was Bruce’s biological child—worrying, because Bruce was only thirty-five, not that the League knew that—or he could tell the story of how they met, which Jason never got to do.

Bruce must have sensed Jason’s train of thought, because he seemed to be bracing himself.

“Dad, on the other hand,” Jason said, “has a bad habit of collecting kids. Right off the street, sometimes.”

“Sounds…illegal,” Green Lantern said.

“As a kid, I was quite the hellion—”

“Don’t.”

“—so once, I was like, ‘wouldn’t this be funny?’—”

“…”

“—and I stole the Batmobile’s tires.”

“You—” Green Arrow started.

“—What?” Flash finished.

“So, like any reasonable adult person, Dad went, ‘yep, this one’s mine now,’ and took me home,” Jason finished.

“And you’ve been together ever since,” Green Arrow muttered.

Jason briefly tensed, a tell he thought he’d trained himself out of, and forced himself to relax. “Something like that. I swear, he collects kids the way some people collect trophies. Oh, wait, he does that too.” He turned to Bruce, who was determinedly staring at the city skyline as if he could force the exchange to end through sheer will. It was a futile hope; he wasn’t Dick. “Did you tell them about the trophy cases in the Cave?”

“The Cave?” Green Lantern echoed.

“The Bat Cave,” Jason said. “He has all our old uniforms in there, even—” No, wait, bad, Jason was trying to direct the conversation away from that, “—Staling’s. I swear, he has the worst fashion sense out of all of us.”

“Says the guy wearing the red hood,” Green Arrow said.

Jason looked at him incredulously. “I’m the _Red Hood,_ it’s in the _name_, and that’s a brave stance coming from discount Robin Hood.”

Green Arrow spluttered. “That’s rich, coming from an obvious delinquent named after a little girl who was eaten by a wolf.”

Jason’s chest tightened. “Says a guy with the worst-kept secret identity on the planet who clearly has _no idea what he’s talking about._”

Bruce wrapped an arm around Jason’s chest, which he (barely) allowed because, for once, Bruce wasn’t the one he was mad at. Superman’s hand landed on Green Arrow’s shoulder.

Jason panted. He was sure that Superman would lecture Green Arrow later, but that didn’t make Jason feel better. He was doing anger management exercises, most days he carried modified paint guns instead of real actual guns with real actual bullets, and he started aiming for kneecaps rather than torsos when he was carrying. He wasn’t perfect, but he was trying, and Green Arrow thought he could just waltz in and undermine that like it all meant nothing.

“Arrow,” Bruce said in a low voice, “watch yourself. No one talks to my kids like that.”

When Bruce decided to work with superheroes outside of his family, the longer he didn’t tell anyone the more he convinced himself that it would end with mild pranking, like the time the kids replaced his regular mugs with a series of “World’s Okayest Dad” mugs (although Babs had scribbled out the “Dad” on hers and wrote in the word “Bat”). He never intended for anyone’s feelings to get hurt, least of all Jason’s, even though it was most likely to press Jason’s buttons. Bruce was still finding the line with him.

Jason thought he shouldn’t be this upset. He came here to have some simple fun at Bruce’s expense; he shouldn’t have been set off by a single, thoughtless line. There was no way that Queen knew he had been swallowed by the Joker and spat back out by the Lazarus Pit. He knew that. So why…?

“We’ll talk about this later,” Bruce said. For a second, Jason thought Bruce was talking to him, but Bruce was looking at the League. He turned back to Jason. “Let’s go home, Jay.”

Jason nodded curtly, shaking off Bruce arm and turning his back on the Justice League. Later, he would realize that Bruce had placed him above the time and feelings of his new friends.

After they left, Wonder Woman smacked Green Arrow upside the head, dislodging his hat and nearly dislodging his mask.

“What was that for?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even in a universe where neither Dick nor Jason have met/befriended Roy, Oliver Queen is still a dick and Jason is still ready to fight him. Hopefully next chapter will be less tense.
> 
> Tidbit that I was going to include in this chapter but didn't fit: Jason was going to say that Bruce had six children and Bruce was going to say that he had seven. Jason: "You know Oracle is going to kick your ass for that, right"

**Author's Note:**

> Give me a shout if you think I should continue this! Next up would, of course, be Jason.


End file.
